Should they bring back Janeway?
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
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Ah, but you already do. It's the world we all live in. There's a very real line that divides the pro and the amateur in every field. Anybody can place their work on one side of the line and claim it to be just as good as the work on the other side. That's a completely subjective call. But it takes a different sort to cross the line and actually prove it. There's nothing subjective about that.
How do you prove that your professional work is better than amateur work if it is a completely subjective call?
That's not something a writer who has already sold work to a professional publisher needs to prove. He's already done so. It's for the amateur to prove his own work is of professional standard by finding a publisher willing to purchase it.
LOL, now I see where you're coming from. Yes, you can only call yourself a "professional" if you earn money. But that says NOTHING about the quality of your work.
What's next? Measuring the quality by how much the publisher is willing to pay you?
Of course. The professional rate is 5 cents and above per word for a short story. Any publisher who pays less is not considered a pro market. 3 cents per word is common in the semi-pro markets, for example. Certainly novels are subject to a different pay scale.
It's certainly an indication of some of that author's qualities.
It is the indication that the publisher likes the sales figures. But didn't you yourself say that even critically acclaimed novels like Ex Machina have low sales? See the difference between quality and financials. Professional means deliver on schedule, deliver more than just once, etc... I know. I'm a professional artist myself, and I have some colleagues with Dark Gilligan's mindset. But then I look at the work of a lot of hobbyists, and I see work that is of much better quality. They just don't do it professionally. Because of choice, because of chance, whatever. Simple as that. Arrogant thoughts about professionals being a higher class are completely unneccessary.
I also know that every Hollywood blockbuster is better than any independent movie, simply because the writer has been paid 5 million for his script.
It certainly looks better on a resume.
...must...become...Hollywood...screenwriter...
Not so sure I want to do any of the soul-selling and evil required of attaining such a position.
$5 million vs. Soul.
Soul vs. $5 million.
Hmmm.
Not so sure I want to do any of the soul-selling and evil required of attaining such a position.
$5 million vs. Soul.
Soul vs. $5 million.
Hmmm.
Well it's not like that many screenwriters are pulling in 5 million bucks. Top screenwriters sure. But there's long been a drive to keep prices on screenwriters down. I read somewhere that most working screenwriters live upper middle class existences. Nothing to sneer at of course but also not 5 mil a gig either. 
Yeah, that was part of the whole strike a couple years ago. Everything thinks that anyone who works in Hollywood makes huge amounts of money, but for the majority of people it just isn't true. It's only the few big names that make the big bucks, everyone else gets pain more reasonable amounts.
Which is why I said blockbuster.
And 1.5 million for the script for Evan Almighty is all I say about that.
And 1.5 million for the script for Evan Almighty is all I say about that.
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Exactly. But the fact that some writers are highly-coveted by publishers says that those authors have quality somewhere - perhaps qualities that include that mysterious "X Factor" - that make one writer's materials more sought after, and more anticipated, than others.
Exactly, and amateur fanfic doesn't have to go through any editing process at all. Some of it is even first draft.
My original point, as a former fanfic author, an amateur and then a professional editor, and a sometime professional writer of journal articles, is that the gems of fanfic can be totally lost in the mire of truly dreadful stuff. It wasn't nearly as bad in the 70s and 80s, when fanzines were edited, and money had to be invested into printing, storing and distributing the product. Now that anyone with an Internet connection and a keyboard can upload fanfic, the good stuff is often well buried and hard to locate.
Sure, so do I - but they probably haven't had to meet an extraordinarily tight deadline, nor work to the strict rules of a commissioned work, nor please a finicky editor - and publisher and writer and marketing department.
The "arrogant thoughts" were probably an attempt to counter the Janeway and VOY fans' argument; they seemed to be saying that Janeway and VOY fanfic was better than the professionally licensed tie-in novels - and yet to find the rare gems in the mire that is online fanfic is a huge challenge. And they were quoting numbers of available online amateur stories to measure popularity of each ST character. Numbers of stories doesn't equal numbers of stories that are readable.
I also know that every Hollywood blockbuster is better than any independent movie, simply because the writer has been paid 5 million for his script.
Well, similarly, sorting through the mire that is the independent film industry, you often have to plough through many films to find one that you like. I liked many, many independent films better than "Avatar", but I've also hated many independent movies - or read hundreds of film reviews to find the worthwhile ones.
Um, let's compare the paychecks of, say, Dan Brown and, well, any writer of what the publishing and critical world call literature - especially the prizewinning sort - and see if you can still say that with a straight face.
Um if any of the Janeway fans who are pissed off about her death are still here she is alive and IN the Star Trek Online novel Needs of the Many.
people keep telling them that, apparently it's not enough. or they don't care.
Thanks. It was mentioned in the Voyager forum and I believe some fans there have already read it. It's on my to-do list.
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